New optical chip could offer super-fast Internet

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Anyone used to the speed of Australian broadband may find some sense of irony that physicists at the University of Sydney have developed an optical chip which could be capable of making the Internet up to 100 times faster than at present.

Chalcogenide glass photonic chips (my spell checker only liked “glass” and “chips” there) are relatively cheap to produce from plain glass crystals, and could theoretically allow networks to move data at 640Gb (80GB) per second — that’s about 17 DVDs or 2 Blu-ray discs every second. These speeds are achieved by operating optically rather than using traditional electronic components…

Student faces academic misconduct charges for running Facebook study group

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It seems the powers that be are taking quite a dim view of the Internet, because it’s so darn powerful and can bring so many people, and so much information, together.

What Chris Avenir, a first-year student at Ryerson University, though was an innocent online group to help students to improve their understanding of physics, has been branded as outright cheating.

He now faces charges of academic misconduct for allowing 146 of his classmates to seek help on homework (sorry, assignment) questions worth 10% of their overall mark — one count for setting up the group, and one for each other student who joined in. Wow, just think what would’ve happened if the group had gone global (mind you, this is physics we’re talking about, not beach volleyball)